of themselves?

Does marriage change the nature and the means of love? Does it make a man fond of a slattern, or a woman fond of a sloven? Did the lover admire order and neatness, and has the wife or husband fallen in love with disorder? It is a great mistake, my friends, a great mistake.

I have read somewhere of a people who are accustomed to wear their best clothes at home. If this custom were adopted among ourselves, what a different aspect it would impart to some households! We might appear rather indifferent, perhaps, abroad. Our old duds might give rather a strange look to our streets; but then, all these would be laid aside the moment we entered our own doors. We should don "our best," and sit down at our firesides pleased with ourselves and with each other. The temptation, too, to go abroad would be less, and thus it would be more easy to comply with the apostolic precept, to be "keepers at home." Home would then keep us. I bethink me now of another apostolic precept, which seems to discourage attention to dress. It speaks slightingly of the braiding of hair, and the putting on of apparel, and commends the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Think you that Peter seriously meant that a woman should never braid her hair, should never literally put on apparel? Mercy save us; no, not this last, surely. What, then, does he mean? I think it must be an excessive fondness for dress-that's all. If we dress according to the analogy of nature, (as Butler

O

has it,) we shall dress as well as we can, according to our condition in life. He who has clothed the earth so beautifully, and has given us to perceive and enjoy it, can never have intended that we should not bring into exercise, in connection with the clothing of ourselves, the perception of the beautiful implanted in our natures. It must be a strange taste which prefers the untasteful for its own sake. It is not natural. Leave people to their choice, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will choose as an associate, other things being equal, the best (in the best sense of the word) dressed person. If I were to put another petition in the prayer book, it should be somewhat as follows: From all slatterns, from all slovens, Good Lord, deliver us!

HOME.

THERE is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved of Heaven o'er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night-
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth.
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so beautiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air.
In every clime, the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;
In the clear heaven of her delighted eye,
An angel guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man? a patriot? Look around.
O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!

SWEET ANNIE FAY.

THE pride of the village was sweet Annie Fay,
So winsome and winning, so gladsome and gay;
She ruled all the swains by her beauty's bright sway,
And won hearts by dozens to throw them away.

This could not last always: young Love flitted by,
And shone in the glance of Willie's dark eye;
He aimed at sweet Annie, and barbed was the dart,
And fatal the power that pierced her young heart.

Young Willie was missing one morning in June,
The month of all others when hearts play in tune,
When hopeful affection the soft bosom fills,
Aud mutual confession with happiness thrills.

He could not be found; and rumor had said
He was jilted by Annie for rich Squire Ned.
And where was our Annie? The fond one had flown
With her Willie from church to a cot of their own.

TO A SISTER.

YES, dear one, to the envied train
Of those around thy homage pay;
But wilt thou never kindly deign

To think of him that's far away?
Thy form, thine eye, thine angel smile
For many years I may not see;
But wilt thou not, sometimes the while,
My sister dear, remember me?

But not in fashion's brilliant hall,
Surrounded by the gay and fair,
And thou the fairest of them all.

O, think not, think not of me there; But when the thoughtless crowd is gone, And hushed the voice of senseless glee,

And all is silent, still, and lone,

And thou art sad, remember me.

Remember me

but, loveliest, ne'er
When, in his orbit fair and high,
The morning's glowing charioteer
Rides proudly up the blushing sky;
But when the waning moonbeam sleeps
At moonlight on that lonely lea,
And Nature's pensive spirit weeps,
And all her dews, remember me.